Then Peter was running, floundering, not daring to look back, hearing muffled pursuing footsteps, whispered voices; ready to scream the moment they pulled him down.
But they didn't. There was nobody there when he burst out of the drifts and fell on the smooth powdered slopes of the hillside, lying there breathless. No footsteps, just the thumping of his temples and the racing of his pulses.
The sun was dipping behind the highest peaks of the distant beacons, a deep fiery ball that threatened the return of a hard frost once its luke-warm rays had been replaced by the shadows of dusk,
He knew he had to get back to the cottage because there was nowhere else to go. His last outpost, a besieged blockhouse, the enemy forces already massing in the hills above, waiting for darkness.
The descent was far more treacherous than the ascent had been; he could see where he might end up if he slipped, a human snowball rolling and bouncing, growing in size, smashing asunder when it hit the sharp rocks below to reveal a battered bloody corpse, human carrion for the predators of the dark hours to feed upon. Like Peters.
Oh God, I didn't kill him, I swear it\
No, but I wounded him!
Peter glanced back just once to satisfy himself that they weren't on his heels already. There wasn't a living thing in sight. Even the sun was gone now and the evening shadows cast elongated tentacles down the hillside as though reaching out for him, trying to pull him back.
He wished he could have skirted the stone circle but it was the only way down. The deformed trees stood out starkly against a white background, the sun having melted the snow which had earlier hidden their scarred boughs. They, too, were pointing accusingly at him with crooked hag-like fingers. Murdererl
He was bleeding from a cut on his hand where he had scraped it against a sliver of jagged rock, leaving a trail, a scent that anybody or anything could follow! Tonight they would come for him for sure. They wouldn't wait any longer!
He grunted with relief when he made it to the back gate. There was still nothing behind him but a barren landscape that might have been in the depths of Antarctica, the dusk coming fast now that the sun had gone.
He was aware of the clinging coldness of his saturated clothes and shivered for a number of reasons. He broke into a staggering run towards the door.
Something seemed to hit him. It was almost a physical blow that stopped him in his tracks: a flash of crimson that dazzled in the surrounding whiteness like the blinding beam of an oncoming headlight in the blackness of the night. He recoiled as he thought of Peters again and the brightness of the blood on the snow. , .
This was crazy—there was blood running down the door, scarlet and wet, so thick that some of it was already congealing!
Peter couldn't hold back his scream this time, a loud cry of fear and mental agony, knowing that he hovered on the brink of that dark chasm once again. Maybe it would be easier to slide into its cooling blackness, an oblivion that would destroy the mounting terrors of this awful place.
It wasn't blood, it couldn't be ... too bright . . .
No, it wasn't blood, even though a tiny hysterical voice somewhere inside him was screaming out that it was.
It was red paint, still wet, daubed on the woodwork within the last hour or so. He could see brushmarks in the form of a large cross, although in places the paint had run.
Peter almost screamed again. He clutched at some rotten trellis work and brought a shower of wet snow down on himself. A crudely painted cross that was not yet dry . . . They had been here whilst he was away, knowing that he couldn't escape, that he would be forced to return here.
But for God's sake why?
There could only be one answer to that: they had warned him and their warnings had gone unheeded. Their patience had run out and tonight they would come for him.
The lurkers had daubed the mark of death on the door of Hodre.
14
Peter checked every room, shotgun at the ready, hammers at full cock. Only when he had ascertained that there was nobody inside the cottage did he breathe a sigh of relief. For one awful moment he had feared that they might already be here. But they weren't; they were waiting for night to fall.
He peeled off his saturated freezing clothing and changed into rough working denims, wishing that Janie had had time to renew all the curtains in the cottage. . . He couldn't shake off the unnerving feeling of being watched all the time; that was how they wore you down, just watching you until you couldn't stand it any longer.
For God's sake, I don't want to stay here. I'll go. You don't have to do this to me. I'll leave Hodre and I'll never come back \ He would have left there and then, only there was no way out. The choice wasn't his; he had to stay—but he wasn't giving in. He had the gun, he wouldn't make it easy for them. He'd take a few of them with him!
The change of clothing and the warmth from the Rayburn had brought back his resolution to fight. Anger, too, because they had no right to do this to him. And they were preventing him from getting on with his book; that in itself was a cardinal sin.
What the hell had happened to Peters? Certainly a terrible blow of some kind had smashed his skull, killing him instantly. But who had done it and for what reason? And where was Don Peters' poaching partner, Mick Bostock? Was he lying out there dead in the drifts, too?
Peter found himself doing a host of unnecessary things that he would not have bothered with under different circumstances. Like checking the doors to ensure that they were all locked and bolted, although that had been his first task upon his return to the cottage. And lifting the telephone receiver to see if by some miracle it was working again—but of course it wasn't. Then cleaning the shotgun again; he might need it very soon.
A tiny portable transistor radio stood precariously on the mantelshelf. It had been one of Gavin's presents last Christmas, and Peter wondered why the boy had not taken it with him; probably because it wasn't much good, more of a crackling toy than anything else, cheap imported junk.
Nevertheless Peter switched it on, primarily because he needed something to break the silence. Anything.
I should be listening for them coming.
The transistor crackled over a background of unrecognisable pop music, some disc-jockey shouting to try and make himself heard above it. Maybe he realised that people somewhere were foolish enough to buy three quid trannies like this and was doing his best to help them. Not that Peter was interested in the DJ's verbal garbage. It was just another human voice, even if it did sound like a dalek. In a while, Peter grinned wryly to himself, he'd end up talking back to it—and that would be a damned sight worse than talking to himself.
It was at that moment that the light dimmed, flickered. And went out.
Darkness! Maybe he'd slipped down into the black abyss of oblivion at last and his brain had burst because he couldn't stand any more. But he knew he hadn't because the DJ was still gabbling incessant nonsense, putting another disc on his ever-spinning turntable, and he certainly wouldn't be in the chasm of nothingness. Which meant Peter was still in Hodre.
The sudden plunge into darkness didn't come as a mind-shattering shock. Possibly his nerves were acclimatising to a series of crises so that they accepted them. He found himself wondering why the power had failed. Doubtless a cable somewhere had snapped under the weight of the snow. Or maybe it was something simple like a blown fuse. He'd better check . . .